The Healing Journey

March 16, 2024

“The heart will break, but broken live on”
–Lord Byron

After someone you love dies, you may find yourself wanting to stay in bed all day with no desire to get up and face the world. You will surely be tired because grief can cause anxiety and fatigue and will take a lot out of you. You may also want to stay in bed because you don’t have the will to resume your life. This condition is characterized by a loss of will or volition, and a deep sense of helplessness or, even worse, hopelessness.

You may think there’s nothing left to live for and would prefer to die. This is one of the most challenging aspects of mourning. You may also believe this depressive state is necessary to prove the love you had for the person who died. But you have to realize that eventually, this state of depressive grieving must end.

In many cultures and societies after a year of grieving, it was expected a person’s life would return to normal as much as possible. In our modern society, we realize grief can last much longer, and even then it is never entirely “over” because your life can never fully return to the way it was before.

Grief changes all of us forever, and as difficult as it may be, we have to get up and get out and face the world again … even if we can only do it a little at a time.

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It may be hard to resume your life, but if you’re honest with yourself, you know your departed loved one would want you to go on and be happy until you meet again in the next life. This is one of the greatest challenges of the healing journey.